These Scars of Mine
by Melitza
Summary: Rukia Centric Oneshots. New post: the bridesmaid : Her cheeks were wet, but she knew that no one would be watching her anyway. IchiHime, onesided IchiRuki
1. These Scars of Mine

**Disclaimer:** Bleach is Kubo's.

**Title:** These Scars of Mine

**Rating**: T, for maybe a tiny, itsy bitsy bit of lime.

**Character Focus: **Kuchiki Rukia, Kurosaki Ichigo

**Setting: **Time could be anytime Rukia is at the Kurosaki residence, really. If you read closely, you'll see hints that this is actually meant to be a prequel to my other Bleach story (which I _will_ finish, soon hopefully, I promise).

**Description: **On the marks she bears, what they mean to her, and why she is not ashamed even when Ichigo looks upon them.

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--

Embarrassment was something lost to her a lifetime ago. Body-shyness was a phenomenon saved for those of a more delicate upbringing. She had grown up a scruffy street rat with Renji and the others, without even a modesty screen to hide behind and make-believe for a second she had such luxuries.

She was used to living in uncertain territory – of sleeping with one eye and both ears delegated to restlessness, and never blinking but for a second even in the light of day. And so, when the door slammed open behind her, she did not jump, and nor was she even particularly surprised. Even without his reiatsu flaring like a beacon and lighting his every move for her _other_ eye, her ears had instinctively followed the heavy shuffling of male footsteps, and the back of her neck had instinctively prickled as her mind counted the steps, cataloged the telltale pause, noted the hissing of the doorknob –

It was clear from the blank look of shock on his face that the discretion had not been deliberate. She would not trivialize herself so much as to say he has _forgotten he was sharing his room_. Besides, if her mind cataloged every errant noise as diligently as if she were in the midst of enemy territory even now – even here – then she could certainly forgive him for relaxing and allowing _his_ instincts to take over in this, his own home.

She hesitated, pilfered shirt wrapping arms frozen in midair, slid halfway down her arms but not at all over her body. Her back (_cold, uncovered, naked_) was to him, blocking any view that might have been embarrassing (_for him – she had grown up with boys on the street, trained with guys in the academy, lived and breathed and died with men on the battlefield_) but after several seconds passed in awkward silence and there was no hurried shuffling of retreat, Rukia looked unrepentantly over her shoulder at him.

"I apologize, Ichigo. I will only require your room for a few moments longer," she sniffed in clear dismissal. Hesitated.

_Silence_.

"Rukia –" His voice was choked, coming from somewhere deep in his chest and smoldering with emotion she could not quite interpret. Unbalanced by the tone, she shot another look over her shoulder.

She wished she hadn't. The horror on his face was clear as day, and hurriedly (_agitatedly_), she yanked the shirt over her head. "I'm sorry it disgusts you," she snapped, though she wasn't.

A tiny, petty corner of her mind lamented that he had seen her _brands_. Had seen the marks that would forever ruin her body. She was not Orihime, pretty and pure and perfect, the little voice wailed.

She was not pretty.

Rukia huffed; petty little voices were also niceties saved for those of a more delicate upbringing.

And so, after a stung moment (_a moment of weakness – just one word – just her name – should never have pained her so deeply_), the sereneness slipped easily back into place. The subtle, secret little smirk tugged easily on her lips as she turned to face him, clothing now modestly in place. "Well. If you simply couldn't wait a moment longer, you say as much," she jabbed, still agitated, and moved to sidle past him.

She was stopped when a solid hand snagged her arm in passing. His grip was surprisingly ungentle, and her halt was admittedly jarring. "Rukia – I want to know who did that," he spoke so carefully (too carefully), and her mind filled in the blanks. There was something about the soft hoarseness in his voice that unbalanced her – left her dizzy and breathless.

Resentful of the momentary whim, the treacherous corner of her mind intervened. '_He is angry at them for ruining your skin. For making you ugly._'

"Who did that to you?" He demanded rather than asked this time, and the query was less careful and edged far closer to barely restrained anger.

But his temper was only bellows flaming her own, and Rukia snarled, "I did, Ichigo!"

She almost laughed out loud at the stricken look on his face – at the way he dropped her arm as if it burned. Drawing back and aloof, turning up her nose, she somehow managed to look down at him. "My body is a lacework of scars, and every blow was taken by choice. I would change nothing. Each score is a mark of victory."

She lifted her chin, as if challenging him to contradict her. But suddenly she realized he wasn't meeting her gaze, but instead his eyes were glued _below_ hers, slightly to the right…

Agitatedly glancing down, she noticed that his grip on her arm had twisted the shirt off her shoulder, and his gaze was fixed there. Her bristling immediately faded, and gently, Rukia relinquished. She would allow him this explanation, if only because of his gentle eyes. "The shopkeeper had a bladed staff."

--

'_How were we supposed to know the miserable bastard kept a shikomizue? Miser can't afford a few drops of water for thirsting children, but he can keep steel at his side to cut them down should they try to steal it. Burn in hell, bastard,_' she later huffed, face red with fury at the recollection such a despicable individual even existed. He stroked her arm comfortingly – slowly leaned in, then murmured soft nothings in her hair as if it might lessen the pain of recollection of a man so utterly, wrongfully crooked.

--

"He meant to get Renji."

--

'_In the back. In the spine, or the back of the head – I don't really know where the blow would have landed. I just knew it would have landed, and that was enough._' Much later, she was far more demure at this recollection. But even if calm and safely years from the incident, the mere thought of losing Renji – even after their separation for so long, even after years of estrangement and a relationship seemingly perverted beyond all repair – it was enough to sting at her eyes and claw at her throat. If he was uncomfortable with the display of devotion towards the other man, the way he softly leaned forward and brushed away the errant tears from her cheekbones with his lips spoke nothing for it.

--

Rukia smiled fondly, eyes caressing the angry red scar that would forever mar the porcelain flesh of her shoulder. "He meant to get Renji," she repeated, more softly this time as she finished the sentence, "but he didn't."

He didn't, because he got her instead. And her shoulder bore the eternal evidence of a call far too close.

--

'_If only I were a shield…_' she later sighed, and was glad the darkness veiled the burning intensity of her cheeks. She had sworn she had no body-shyness – had sworn it was something lost to her along with a carefree childhood and a family who loved her – but gods-be-darned if her stomach didn't flutter like so many hell butterflies as his calloused fingers traced the latticework of scars on her back.

--

So many different scenarios played out in her head. She expected any number of responses from him – from agitation at her own apparent lack of self-preservation skills to disgust at the fact that she could possibly show _pride _in her disfigurements.

His response didn't matter. That winding in her stomach was something she ate. The catch in her breath was from anger at his presumptuousness. The chill was from a draft in the window.

The quiet was unbearable because she was far more comfortable arguing with him.

"I'm… glad he didn't," he finally said, and meant it. "I would like it if you shared this with me," he continued. "The stories, I mean. If you wouldn't mind, that is," he corrected quickly. Then, more quietly – barely audible, as if he was embarrassed – he clarified, "They represent the things most important to you, right? I want to know more about those things."

His response didn't matter, she insisted to herself, but could not think of a reason why her stomach was suddenly doing somersaults, and her cheeks burned so hotly, and her veins turned from ice to fire. '_He gets it,_' that corner of her mind screamed joyously while the rest tried vainly to shush it back into quiet. '_He gets me._'

--

'_But alas, the gods did not see fit to give me skin of steel_,' she sighed dramatically in finish, pitching her voice and rolling her eyes in a last-ditch attempt to agitate to him – to get his temper to push this thoughtful, sensitive side of him into a corner. Into a safe corner, far in the depths of his mind. To protect until later, when they might have more time to pull it out and polish it up and experiment and enjoy…

_And to let her hide for just a little while longer…_

'_I'm glad they didn't,_' he murmured softly, so clearly taking bait of a different kind. When she felt his tongue (_so warm and hot and soft_) languidly tracing the mark on her shoulder, all thoughts of baiting _or_ hiding suddenly became the furthest thing from her thoughts.

--

Much, much later, she would bear scars marking the times she protected him. She secretly coveted these most of all, sometimes stroking them idly in the late solitude of night, finding it eerily fitting that they were the deepest rooted and seated closest to her heart.

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_FIN_

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READ IT? REVIEW IT!


	2. Laying us bear

**Title:** Laying us bare

**Rating:** T (violence)

**Characters:** Rukia, Ichigo, Grimmjow

**Pairings:** hints at Rukia x Ichigo

**Setting: **Manga chapter 202+ (and subsequent spoilers) – right after Grimmjow enters the real world for the first time

**Description:** It struck her suddenly that in one fateful moment – one stab of his hand into her breast – and Grimmjow had done what months of their separation and subsequent reuniting in Soul Society had not even painted so starkly.

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"You won't get out of this," the Arrancar warns, and she knows it to be true. This was no Nii-sama or Renji she could lure away with hot tears, harsh words, and a willingness to lose _everything_ if only to assure _he would be ok_. This was no pathetic, C-grade hollow she could throw herself in front of and assume the damage in his place.

Not and walk away to tell the tale, at least.

"I will kill you both," he boasts, and this she knows is untrue. '_You will not hurt him,_' she replies fiercely, though her lips and lungs will not work in tandem to share the resolution. '_I won't let you._'

"Sexto Arrancar – Grimmjow! Remember that, Shinigamis! Now, which one of you is the stronger?"

"Ichigo – _run!_" she is finally able to burst, forcing the command frenetically as if the empty words might build her up and make her capable of protecting him this time. She wasn't; she knew that the moment the Arrancar stepped into this world. His spiritual pressure surged and endeavored to force her to her knees, though she refused to comply.

It was over embarrassingly quickly nonetheless.

With his hand piercing her chest, inching its way beneath her sternum steadily towards her heart, Rukia found it odd that it was suddenly _easier_ to think rather than harder. It was as if in a flash of red and blinding pain, all the haze and pollution of her inner world of turmoil was burned away.

"Rukia!" Ichigo screams, and his voice is as raw as her open ribcage. It struck her suddenly that in one fateful moment – one stab of his hand into her breast – and Grimmjow had done what months of their separation and subsequent reuniting in Soul Society had not even painted so starkly.

He had laid bare their hearts.

'_These mortal wounds, like the sun, burning away the mist we use to hide ourselves..._'

--

--

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_**Finis**_


	3. Our unlikely connection

**Title:** Our unlikely connection

**Rating:** T (violence, language)

**Characters:** Rukia, Grimmjow

**Pairings:** Rukia x Grimmjow if you _really_ squint

**Setting: **Manga chapter 202+ (and subsequent spoilers) – right after Grimmjow enters the real world for the first time and pierces Rukia's chest

**Description:** With his hand in her chest, only inches from her heart, it is only natural she would recognize their unlikely connection.

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--

Worry, _pain_, anger, _pain_, worry, _pain_, disappointment, _pain._ At first they were separate entities flickering in distinct shades of black and white, but then they began to meld together. First, a kaleidoscope, then marbled, and finally a smoky gray with neither beginning nor end.

There was a roar in her ears, but she thought she could hear Ichigo's shout. Damnit. She was choking on her own blood; the goddamn bastard's hand was _in her lungs_, and the sacrifice had been for _nothing_.

When Grimmjow lifted her high and regarded her as some broken doll, she met his eyes and meant to look defiant. But their faces were only inches apart, and suddenly the intimacy of their position struck her, though not nearly as hard as her absolute inability to do _anything_ about it did.

'_I am a failure,_' she thinks, and when she looks into the depths of his seething, frustrated eyes (_cerulean blue – who knew a hollow to have such pretty, pretty eyes?_), she realizes that perhaps he was a failure, too.

--

--

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_**Finis**_

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Author's Notes: SPOILERS!

If anyone should have problems with the way Soul Society is managed, it should probably be Rukia. Her Captain made her stand back and watch her beloved teacher and Vice Captain be slaughtered, she was put on death row for _saving_ someone, and then Soul Society even tried to keep her from helping rescue a girl who had served as her first real girl-friend. And yet Rukia takes it all and blames herself for being a failure and not being strong enough.

Grimmjow is equally dissatisfied with the way Heuco Mundo is being run, and he seems to have a little bit of a complex about not being strong enough as well in later chapters. So I thought the parallelism was interesting, if vague and underplayed.

Grasping? Maybe, but ye gods, that scene was so hot!


	4. ginger tinted bright

Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Bleach. But if I did, I would still disclaim it and write tawdry fanfiction and post it all over the net for feedback. So you'll always wonder, eh?

**Warning:** Complete, utter crack-pairing. The absolute only basis I have for this one is the fact they look hawt together, and um, like one exchange that I know of… in a _filler arc_, ohh, the horror.

**Title:** Ginger Tinted Bright

**Rating**: T, for light sexual references and implied (maybe? ) yuri

**Character Focus: **Shuhei Hisagi x Kuchiki Rukia, light Orihime x Rukia, implied Ichigo x Rukia

**Setting: **Bount Arc, episodes 84 & 85

**Description: ** In which Shuhei Hisago realizes he never had Kuichiki Rukia to begin with

--

--

When Yamamoto-san ordered for him to go to the living world and assist in the problems the current shinigami stationed there were having, never for a moment did it cross his mind that he might encounter _her_.

--

--

The rotation of her hips was a graceful, slow kind of agony. She was as careful and tentative as he was firm and confident, and together, their sweat and hisses and moans mixed to make something new and exciting and beautiful.

"Kuchiki," the syllables shuddered from deep in his chest as he ground into her again and again.

He never noticed the way she flinched or the momentary flash of hurt in her eyes when he called out her surname instead of her name. It was many, many years later before he even realized his transgressions.

He liked the way he reflected in her eyes; likened himself to tall, dark and handsome. Older, secure, and mysterious; he liked the way she watched him with such solemn and open adoration. It was many years later before he realized that when she looked at him, the only thing reflecting in her violet eyes was a dark sadness and a shallow likeness of a man who would never (_could never_) be hers.

Dark; he was right in the 'dark' and little else. Dark like anxiety, not mystery; dark like desolation, not beauty. Dark like his hair; dark like _Kaien's_ hair, he realized, and wondered later if it was irony or simple coincidence.

--

--

"Kuchiki," he had called, reaching out to take hold of her arm as she tried to swiftly pass him in the Academy hall. He had heard of the terrible accident that had occurred within her division, and seeing her pass with such sallow eyes, he thought only to offer the kinds of words friends offered in times of hardship. They were that, weren't they?

(_If only he had known then what he knew now – if only he had known the guilt she dragged with her. Had known that her beloved mentor, her lieutenant, had been slain by her own forced hand… He liked to believe he might have done things differently – done things right._)

"Kuchiki –" he started again, now that he had hold of her, but she interrupted him before the right words could come.

"After everything – you would think –" she started, halted; paused. Then shook her head quickly, apparently dismissing both the thought and him at once. "You would think you could say my name," she finished, and there was almost an audible snap to be heard, like the closing of a book. The coldness emanating like an aura was clumsy and foreign on her, but somehow he knew that even though she was uncertain in it now, she meant to grow into it. To become it.

Hisagi pulled back, stunned, off balanced and uncertain in the face of the brittle aloofness that was not her. He paused, waiting for some sort of explanation, and she paused – perhaps waiting for the same –

He had been her sometime lover, but he prided himself in being dark and mysterious. He would not be the sappy friend who trailed her and begged for her attention – salivated over sharing feelings and hurts and tears. And she… she seemed beyond seeking him for such anyway.

Their prides were an expanse of brittle silence that stretched for an eternity between them. He would not ask, and somehow, he knew even in that moment that she would never tell. Those words would be the only explanation he would get.

She walked away.

Hisagi did not follow.

--

--

"Kuchiki," the syllables shuddered from deep in his chest as he ground into her again and again. Not Rukia. Not the name that was hers. He had chosen the name with pedigree; the one that was a chafing collar that never fitted quite right on her. "Kuchiki," he had hissed, because the syllables had just come a little earlier, rolled off his tongue a little nicer – kept that distance between them a little cooler.

"Kuchiki," he had moaned, and the word slipped from his lips as an icy dagger into her heart. No, Hisagi was not aware of his transgressions, but when he later allowed himself to the whimsy of retracing memory, he realized there were many.

--

--

The ryoka girl had known her for only a matter of months and had no _real_ ties with her to speak of. She was barely an acquaintance, really, and yet she had risked her life to come to Soul Society and rescue Rukia from execution, while Hisagi – her comrade, her teacher, her sometime lover – had actually fought to keep her murder on schedule.

This girl – this Orihime – owed her nothing, and yet here she was, risking everything once again for her. And once again, Hisagi was left to face his own shame.

--

--

"Kill me," Rukia begged.

(_No, Rukia did not beg; never had, and he imagined, never would. Even as a scared little orphan-cadet at the academy, she had walked with her head held high. It was hers to order and demand, never to beg, and had he not known of Byakuya's late wife and her likeness to Rukia, he might have wondered if she had been adopted specifically because her attitude had been crafted with the Kuichiki clan in mind.)_

"Kill me!" she shouted again, and then the Bount's doll burrowed deeper.

She threw back her head and screamed, and his heart twisted and turned and broke even as it swelled with pride. The dichotomy threatened his face with both tears and a sad smile. He allowed neither, instead rumbling his approval with a solemn nod.

"Well said, Kuichiki," (_Kuichiki – always Kuichiki, never Rukia, and most especially not now; it was too late to pretend to be so close_) he soothed, and drew his zanpakuto, and wondered if it would forever be stained with her blood, the way she had confided hers was with Kaien's.

The thought did not bother him as much as it should have. Instead, he selfishly thought, perhaps he would only be happy to carry some small part of her with him from hereon. She had taken back what she had shared with him, cooled to him and made believe that nothing that was had ever been. It was clear by now that her life was not to intertwine with his; but this, her death – it was an honor, it was a sign of her trust in him, and he would not fail her in this one last thing.

He shifted his grip on his zanpakuto and imagined it stained with noble Kuichiki-blood, but did not hesitate in lunging for the kill. Did not hesitate, in fact, until the ryoka girl with ginger hair and expressive brown eyes like windows to her soul moved between…

… Risked it all… and won. Even as she protectively embraced Rukia to her chest and wept for joy, Hisagi felt a rush of shame at how close he had been to giving her up. To betraying her. To _killing her_. _Again._

--

--

When she looked at the ryoka, there were no protocols and ranks between them. No petty barriers. And though the girl softly called her, "Kuchiki-san," Rukia did not flinch, and the warmth of her aura did not shift to ice.

Seeing the way she looked at her (remembering the way she looked at _him_), it struck him that it was no longer black reflected in her violet eyes, but warm, complimentary tints of ginger. And somehow… it fit. And he thought that perhaps the black (_his black, Kaien's black, Kuichiki's black_) had never belonged there at all.

When she looked at the ryoka, she smiled and her sad, sad violet eyes lit up and for the first time in years she was _alive_ and she was _happy_, and suddenly Hisagi realized that he had not lost Kuchiki Rukia. He had not 'given her up.'

He had never had her to begin with.

And now, he was only a faint, dark shadow on the outskirts of the ginger tinted bright.

--

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_Fin_

--

--

_Author's Note: It skips a bit, I know, but it felt the best this way; ask if anything doesn't make sense. This one has been on the back burner for… forever… but I thought I should finish it and put it up, in case there are any other silly little crack-pairing closet-shippers out there._


	5. cicada

Disclaimer: If I owned Bleach

**Disclaimer:** If I owned Bleach… I guess Rukia would be a hoor, ehehe…

**Warning:** Your heart may ache.

**Title:** cicada

**Rating**: PG

**Character Focus: **Renji x Rukia

**Setting: **you pick

**Description: ** The flickering of the black-and-white on the screen cast them in stark shadows much the same, and for a moment, they are the silent film, and the empty theater their audience…

--

It was the constant ticking of the movie reel that lent the silent movie a signature sound all its own. Hazily, Renji thinks of chirping cicada, and wonders how their childhood might have been different had this been their own backdrop, instead of shouting men, screaming women, and bitter, bitter weeping...

He feels more than sees Rukia shift in the seat beside him; the smile that tugs at his thin lips is as wistful as it is sad. "But I s'pose we didn't turn out so bad," he muses quietly - more to himself than anything, but the all-encompassing quiet of the theater begs for him to speak aloud. Begs for her to reply. Something inside him twists (_deliciously? painfully?_) when the tiny shinigami shushes him instead of taking the conversation bait.

"It's a quiet-movie, Rukia," he rumbles, petulant, and once again even he doesn't know which way the twisting of his lips is meant. But he knows the mahogany of his eyes can show only softness when they turn on her, so he imagines she sees it as a friendly smile.

"Silent-movie," she corrects primly. She doesn't even bother to look up at him, so engaged is she in her diligent note-taking. Leave it to Rukia, to see an opportunity for 'modern-studies improvement' even in this, the oddest human partaking. "The father Kurosaki insists that these are a vital part of human entertainment history! A centripetal stepping stone in the fine-arts -"

She probably doesn't even realize the authoritative tone her dictating has taken, and wouldn't even have realized her voice had raised taken that smug 'I know more about this, and therefore I am your superior!' tone that only Rukia could ever use without annoying or infuriating him. Instead of feeling that familiar sensation of being left behind - of being less, of being... something - instead, he is filled with a familiar warmth, and this time, he knows his smile for what it is.

The urge to kiss her burns, but he shoves it down just the same. And it's just as well, because a moment later a few of the stragglers in the back of the theater send a rather loud "SHHH!" in their direction, and then Rukia's smug mood is ruined and replaced with a dour pout. He can't blame her for forgetting they weren't alone. It's just a tiny corner-theater playing a dead-of-the-night showing of an ages-past movie. It was a slow night, the theater owner admitted - but only because a bonefied 'Hollywood blockbuster' was opening on the same night. The other couple was squirreled away somewhere in the back, and even now, having just reminded them of their pretense, Renji found it hard to think of them as people so much as a disembodied hiss in the dark.

"It's a _silent_-movie," he parrots back at her, all whispers and tooth and crooked mocking. She scowls just for him now, and he tries not to feel a glowing sense of accomplishment for it. She snorts and tears back into her notebook, and he settles back against the plush theater seating - but for the life of him, cannot summon any sense of enthusiasm for watching as the strange black and white people doing strange things intermediated by strange captions.

Unable to let him have the last word on that account, she har-umphs a sullen, "Vital part of human entertainment history!" and sticks her nose a little more solidly into her note taking. Absently, Renji worries that she might strain her gigai's eyes, doing that in such poor lighting...

Realizing she feels knocked from her 'sensei' pedestal, he smirks and squirms and assumes the hen-pecked role he always has. He will play the student to her teacher, if only to bask in her self-righteous glow. "It's still _boooring_," he whines. "And how is this even relevant? People don't look like that - and they don't do stuff like that - and we aren't even getting familiar with the language when it's a _silent_ movie!"

The stragglers in the back send another irritated "shush" in their direction. Renji, however, cares far less for their concern than Rukia. It's always been as such. She acts tough around him, but secretly quivers under their judgment; he quivers under hers, and could care less about the rest. They're a strange pair like that.

They fit, like that.

"Can't we just go?" he pries again. "I mean, I have other stuff to do -"

There's a sudden shift in her reiatsu, and from the corner of his eye, he sees he spine stiffen. Immediately, he realizes he must have said something wrong - but just as much, he knows she would sooner bite off her tongue than just admit it, and so, Renji rolls his eyes and sighs dramatically.

"Fine. Whatever. If you think it's important..." He trails off, waiting for her to snap, but she doesn't. Instead, she sulks a little more into that damned book, and he feels a surge of annoyance that she always is able to learn so much better than him - always has, probably always will. On a whim, he stretches an arm behind her head, along the back of her chair... so she won't see it coming, when he swoops in and yanks the notebook from her unsuspecting hands.

"RENJI!" she screeches, dignity affronted. "GIVE IT BACK!"

"Would you _please?_" the woman in the back snaps.

"Don't worry, it's a silent-movie. You aren't missing anything," Renji offers cheekily over his shoulder, and tries not to grin when he hears her groan and slam her feet onto the ground. He hears her stomping out, and imagines she is going to get the movie-guard, or bouncer, or usher, or whatever they're called. Her boy-friend (or boyfriend, or lover, or whatever) rushes after her, and Renji laughs out loud once they're gone.

"Hurry, Rukia - we only have a few minutes alone! Tell me what's so important that has you squirreling away knowledge in your little book -"

She launched to her feet after the book, and Renji, finding that strange, also launches to his feet, turns his back to her, and begins leafing through the pages. Doodles, doodles... more doodles...

It's only when he has been leafing through blank pages for some time that he realizes she hasn't been taking notes at all.

He frowns, puzzled. She opens her mouth to speak, but hesitates - the words choke off within her, though her mouth moves and she is making a good approximate of the silent movie rolling away before them. The wild ticking of mechanical-cicada's filled the gap between. The flickering of the black-and-white on the screen cast them in stark shadows much the same, and for a moment, they are the silent film, and the empty theater their audience.

All at once, the words seem to find her. In a rush, she fills the silence. "I'm sorry, Renji. I didn't mean to - waste your time. I just - I know - Nii-sama probably wouldn't let you dally here in the real world, if it weren't for some sort of 'research' - but - if we go to a real movie, with lots of other people - it's so loud, with so many clashing reiatsu - and - it's sometimes easy to forget you're there - and I'm here - and it's easy to forget - we - it's easy -"

Somewhere in the middle, he felt his insides tumble and somersault. His heart squeezes and spasms wildly, and for the second time that night, the urge is almost unbearable.

His hand is on the back of her head, and he finds himself leaning in. But perhaps more surprisingly - he finds her _leaning up_...

It's unfortunate that he comes back to himself in a bit of a surprise; the guiding hand on the back of her head redirects it's motion, and instead, he presses her to his chest. He tries to tell himself the somersault is from satisfied affection rather than disappointment... but her warmth against him is nice. Her, against him - is nice.

They fit like that.

Sometimes Renji is a little slow, but he isn't dumb (or at least, he likes to think he isn't). So, he smiles amiably and compromises with some centripetal part of his soul, and presses his lips into her raven hair instead. "It's easy to forget _us_," he supplies where she fails - tenses, for a moment, terrified that he might have misinterpreted -

But relaxes again when she sighs and sidles further into him. "I just want... to be together sometimes, y'know?"

"I know," he whispers, and does, more than she could ever, ever imagine. They're quiet again then, but this time, neither feels the urge to rush and fill the silence. Sometimes... words only got in the way. Sometimes... _their _movie was silent. But so long as it was theirs -

" - and they won't be quiet! -" he makes out, as the other irritated movie-goers apparently made their case to the usher. Renji arches a tattooed brow and regards Rukia.

"I think we're about to be asked to leave," he offers, chagrined and oddly regretful as he pulls back from her.

"That's ok," she replies succinctly - shifting so abruptly into brusque-business-like Rukia that he can almost wonder if they had their tender moment at all. "There are other things to observe in this human world." He doesn't have time to feel disappointment creep into him, however, as the next moment she is grasping his hand firmly and tugging him towards the red glow of the 'EXIT' sign. "I think I got what I wanted from this excursion. Or... closer to it, perhaps."

He thinks he hears a hint of uncertainty at the end, and so, he smiles cheekily and needles at her to bolster that irksome-borne confidence that is so typical-Rukia. "And what is 'it', pray tell?"

She only smiles when she turns and looks over her shoulder. Her face is cast in white from the light of the flickering-screen, and the mad ticking lends the backdrop, and though they are both silent, Renji knows that this rewritten movie is one he won't mind watching play out for the rest of his life.

--

_fin_


	6. Back to the Drawing Board

Title: Back to the Drawing Board

**Title:** Back to the Drawing Board

**Rating:** K+

**Characters:** Rukia, Renji, Ichigo, Byakuya

**Pairings:** Rukia x Renji

**Setting: **Meh. Anytime after Soul Society arc.

**Description:** His drawing skills were much better than hers, after all.

--

0

--

Renji had learned a long time ago not to ask 'what's that' when looking at one of Rukia's drawings. Which, he had learned over time, sometimes required a little finesse, and a lot of self-control.

'What do you think of it?' she would ask, and he would smile and grunt and nod enthusiastically. 'It's good, it's good!' he would reply, and hope the interaction would end there.

Sometimes, she would frown slightly. 'A little more concrit would be nice,' she would grit out sweetly (warningly), and it was then that he knew he was in trouble.

'Um… the leaves on the tree are very… leaf-like…?' he would try.

'BAKA!' she would scream, and knock him over the head with the pad. 'It's a TURTLE!'

--

0

--

One time, while passing through the Kuichiki manor, having just dropped off some reports for his captain's consideration, Renji heard Rukia asking the same question of Byakuya. He nearly tripped over himself in excitement as he flew beside the door and waited for his taicho's imminent doom…

'What elements of the drawing would you like improved?' the older man asked calmly instead.

'I suppose the rainbow could do with some more accurate colors… and I guess I didn't quite capture the motion of the leprechaun's dancing…' she replied thoughtfully.

Renji slapped his forehead so loud he nearly missed the older sibling's quiet, 'I shall have a servant pick up a new set of markers for you; and if you wish to enroll in a kinetic sketching class, I suppose I would not be adverse to such a leisure activity.'

Byakuya went on to mildly discuss how it was considered right and proper for nobles to partake in art-focused 'enrichment' endeavors anyway, and Renji slipped quietly away before either of them decided to investigate the loud flesh-on-flesh noise that had designated his defeat.

Why had Renji never thought of that?

--

0

--

'Well? What do you think?' Rukia would raise her chin and stick out her chest and plant her hands on her hips, all fierce pride and victory. (And Renji would watch her and wonder if the goofy, proud, love-struck smile made its way to his lips this time, or if he had contained it to just a fluttery feeling inside his chest.)

'I think it sucks,' Ichigo would intone.

'It's _clearly_ the best unicorn that has ever been drawn – ever! By anyone! Anywhere!' Rukia would scream and stomp her foot impatiently, and Ichigo would smirk, and Renji sighed inwardly because once again, someone (who wasn't him) had mastered a trick to getting her to reveal her picture contents.

But, Renji reflected, as her shrieks and his shouts warred for ultimate supremacy on the decibel scale, he didn't envy Ichigo's method. There had to be a better way.

Her notebook flew back forgotten as she slapped the human boy back and forth across the room, and idly, Renji caught it and peered closely at the scribbles within.

Unicorn. Huh. He probably never would have guessed that…

Back to the drawing board, he supposed.

--

0

--

Sometimes, Renji would admit, he was a little slow on the uptake. But he certainly wasn't stupid, and so, it was only a matter of time before he would discover the _ultimate solution_ to his Rukia problem. He would have liked to have come up with it entirely on his own, but when she handed (quite literally) him a fail-safe, he knew a veritable gold mine when he had one.

"Hey Renji – can you give the elves hats?" she asked absentmindedly, shoving a green marker into his right hand with her left, all the while never taking her eyes from the careful squiggle marks of the (apparent) elf-shoes. He wondered if she felt the same pleasant jolt run up her spine when their fingers brushed.

He figured he was home-safe until the petite shinigami snapped irritably, "I said hats, not gloves, Renji! They need their hands free for making toys, right?"

"Right!" Renji gave his acquiescence hastily, and switched which blob he doodled on.

Rukia hummed in approval and tucked back against him, and it was all he could do not to shiver in delight at the way her warm silken locks fit so perfectly beneath his chin.

--

0

--

"Ne, Renji, what do you think?" Rukia murmured thoughtfully – and this time, the question bore with it no sense of great foreboding.

"Hmm… I dunno… what d'ya want me to add?" he asked.

"You're better at hands…" she offered – trailed off for a moment – then, finally, shoved a peach-colored crayon into his waiting fingers. "Draw our hands. Holding."

"Each other?" he teased, smiling toothily at the way she huffed in annoyance.

"Obviously," she retorted – but as always, had more bark than bite, as she didn't bristle at all when he assumingly sidled into position, flush against her as he bit his lip and concentrated and worked on what he was convinced should be his best masterpiece yet.

If she noticed the matching rings he added to mirroring hands, she certainly didn't say a word. He liked to think she did notice, though.

His drawing skills were much better than hers, after all.

--

0

--

_Fin_

**Author's Note:** Feedback is love.


	7. tomcat

Title: tomcat

**Title:** tomcat

**Rating:** K+

**Characters:** Rukia, Ichigo

**Pairings:** Rukia x Ichigo, smidgen of peripheral Orihime x Tatsuki

**Setting: **Post Winter War

**Description:** He knew it was a bad idea to invest in her. But staring at the pen and paper in his hands, and the blank page in front of him, he knew it was too late, and he was all in.

--0--

She had not disillusioned him; in point of fact, she made it clear enough every chance she got. '_I'm shinigami. I am not of this world_,' she would state again and again, and he (with all the devotion of a child who has been told that Santa isn't real, but who _knows_ the rest of the world has to be mistaken, because the presents still show up every December 25th without fail, dammit!) would carefully catalog away her words to later dissect and scour (for sadness; regret; doubt?).

He never found any, but he didn't stop looking. As long as he looked, he could hope – and as long as he hoped, he could believe.

Then the war ended, and the hollow activity decreased, and absently, Rukia mentioned that she was being promoted, and all at once, his sleepless nights were no longer from midget-shinigami interruptions, but rather from a fitfulness of another kind entirely. She was gone, he was alone, and he revisited the truth he had known all along but chosen to ignore:

It was a bad idea to invest in her.

--0--

He first realized he was in it deep on an exceptionally warm October afternoon. He was in the middle of making balancing the weight of his head on his fist an art, staring out the window, willing time to pass just a little quicker, when the word 'poem' finally broke through his reverie.

"- and you will be writing a poem about how your most important person makes you feel," the teacher droned, and against his will, Ichigo felt his spine stiffen – felt an _impending sense of doom _wash over him.

"Which most important person?" Orihime chimed in, over-exuberant excitement painting her words in flowery shades of pink roses and yellow sunshine. Ichigo almost (_almost_) cringed.

The teacher smiled indulgently at the orange haired girl. "When something important happens to you – when you see something funny happen on your way home – when you are struck by the fact that _this_ moment in time may be the absolute most important in all your life – who is the first person you want to talk to about it?"

It was meant to be a hypothetical question, but immediately Orihime cheered, "Tatsuki-chan!"

Immediately, Ichigo thought, '_Rukia._'

Tatsuki blushed a livid shade of pink.

Ichigo slammed his head on his desk.

The teacher laughed, reaching out to pat Orihime consolingly on the head. "That's fantastic, Inou-san. But you don't need to tell us who – we're just writing poems about how these people make us feel. It might be easier for some of the shier class members to keep the subject of their affection anonymous when they pour out their hearts, yes?"

Ichigo only wished he could have kept the identity anonymous from his own heart.

--0--

She was cagey from the very beginning. Even trapped in a gigai and waning in spiritual strength, it was hard to miss the fact that she was living with one foot in this world and the other in the next. She was a poorly fastened ribbon whipping in the breeze – ties weak enough that she might break loose any second and be gone forever, but so erratic that you were afraid to try and secure her because even the well-intentioned touch might break her loose to the grabbing wind.

He saved her life because he owed her that much. She saved his because they were _nakama_ now. He might have blamed his preoccupation on her – on that unspoken promise in the term – if he could have believed it. But in reality, he knew it started long before she ever named him one of her _most important people_.

He knew it was a bad idea to invest in her – had known all along – and yet now, sitting dolefully in his room, glaring at the blank sheet of paper in front of him and _hating hating hating_ the boring silence of his _empty empty empty_ room, he knew it was too late. He had thrown it all in, and the time for a refund was long past.

Angrily, he put pen to paper.

'_I hate …_,' he began, and faltered.

--0--

He was given two weeks for the paper/poem/whatever, and it was currently day twelve. The paper was due on Monday, and balefully, Ichigo glared at the still-blank sheet, save for the foreboding opening line. Idly, he wondered how much jibing he would get from his buddies if he did some half-assed knock-off of a love poem.

He was so deep into his brooding that he somehow missed her approach, and didn't even notice that she was near until she spoke from where she was perched on his desk.

"You hate what?" she asked, staring with a clinical kind of interest at the mostly-blank sheet of paper he left there in a fit of rage.

Ichigo jerked and flew from his bed with all the indignant-surprise of someone who should have known better, but was had just the same. She gave him a reproachful sidelong glance. "Your reiatsu was practically simmering in agitation. And while I understand that your sensing skills are less-than-stellar… this is a little pathetic, Ichigo."

Pathetic. Him? She left for weeks (or had it been months? It was hard to tell; the days seemed to blend all into one another, with nothing standing out these days… not since she had gone), and then she just waltzed back in and insulted him and expected – and expected –

Expected what?

'_Nothing_,' a corner of his mind whispered confidently. '_Same as always. She comes and goes as if none of this means anything. Just like always._'

It was a never ending cycle – and he desperately wanted off this ride.

With that in mind, he gritted out, "You. I hate _you_."

The world seemed to grind to a halt, and for once, she hesitated – glanced at him, and was quiet for a moment, as if judging his seriousness. Then, apparently satisfied by what she saw, she contradicted with all the quiet, self-important confidence that was Rukia. "You don't hate me."

Ichigo gritted his teeth, and despised the fact that she was right. That she was always right. That he could say '_I hate you_' and she could see it for a bold-faced lie and know he didn't mean it. That she could call him _nakama_, and he could still doubt his worth to her every single day.

"No," he gritted finally, grudgingly. He waited for her to say something, but instead, she merely sat on his desk and cocked her head at him, patiently waiting for him to continue, and – and he just _exploded_.

"No, I don't hate you – I just hate everything about you! I hate the way that from the very beginning you never had any intention of staying – I hate the way you just barged into my life and made a home for yourself here, and made yourself integral, and made me _care_, when all along you never intended to stay! I hate the way – I hate the way – you're such a goddamn _tomcat!_"

"Tomcat?" she echoed idly – and everything about her nonchalant demeanor just proved him right.

He was so angry that he ignored the little logical corner of his mind that scoffed at how ridiculous it was to rant and rave and call Rukia a _tomcat_ of all things. But the challenge was there in her stare just the same, and he wasn't about to back down, and so furiously, he drove on. "Yes! Tomcat! It means – it means you can't just stay put! You just wander, and even when someone tries to make a home for you – even when someone tries to – tries to –" He faltered, and drove on quickly to try and cover it. "Even when someone _tries_ – you just take what you need, take what you want, and then you leave! Like you invested nothing all along – like you didn't _care_, all along! Like some goddamn stray!"

The anger didn't exactly leave him, but the words seemed to implode on him. So all at once he got quiet, and she remained quiet, and resentfully, he wondered if she cared even now, as he poured it all out to him –

At long length, she finally murmured, "I'm sorry, Ichigo. I have a long history of being a stray."

For a moment, he thought she was blowing him off – making excuses – but after another long moment, she puffed out a long sigh, and leaned forward, and he was struck by how calmly serious she looked. The same serene, determined expression she took when she was aiming to achieve some goal – to win a fight – to learn a new move.

"How would one go about… _not_ being a tomcat?"

He was dumb struck by the sincerity in her words. For a moment, he faltered – but only for a moment. "By _being here_. By _not running away_."

She sighed – shifted uncomfortably, looked away. "Ichigo – I have duties –"

Again, anger flared – but this time, it was more like irritation, and far more subdued. "Rukia –"

"I'm here," she interrupted abruptly. "I'm _here_," she repeated, and met his gaze resolutely. "I can't always be, though. I can't always stay. But I'm not running away. Is that…" She faltered – and for the first time, he realized that this meant something to her, too. "Is that enough?"

Something inside his gut twisted. It was a pleasurable kind of ache.

He smiled lopsidedly. "You might still be a tomcat –"

"Then I'll just wear a collar, so all know where I belong," she interrupted flippantly – sensing his tentative change of mood and launching into it with him as smoothly as she ever did. She had her glove on before he even saw her pull it from her pockets, and she slammed it into his chest before he even saw her coming, and then he was frowning in confusion in shinigami form, standing over his body, watching quizzically as she –

Drew Shirayuki and carefully, oh-so-carefully, cut off a strip of the long trailing ribbon on Zangetsu's hilt, and tied it securely around her wrist.

She wiggled the wrist at him and grinned haughtily. "Good enough?" she asked.

He couldn't smother his answering, lopsided smile.

--0--

'_I hate… that you're a tomcat._

_Coming and going as you please_

_Leaving me to wonder._

_Making me realize how much I care,_

_And wonder how much you do._

_But… as long as you come as often as you go….'_

"I guess it's a start."

--0--

**Author's Note:**

Pairing suggestions and prompts accepted.

Feedback is cherished.

FYI, the last two shots were written just for my poll-takers. Yes, I actually try and deliver what you guys ask for.


	8. contrast

**Title:** contrast**  
Rating:** T (S,L,V)**  
Characters:** Rukia, Hitsugaya, Matsumoto**  
Pairings:** Rukia x Hitsugaya, Hitsugaya x Matsumoto, implied Hitsugaya x Hinamori**  
Setting: **Post-Modern Alternate Universe**  
Description:** She had too little, and he too much – and somewhere in the in-between, they made up the difference.

**A/N:** For _Allison_, who requested HitsugayaxRukia, and _Final Flight_, who wanted HitsugayaxMatsumoto. This is primarily a Rukia centric collection, but I thought I'd try and mix 'em for ya. The flavor is something different than anything I've done before, so feedback is appreciated.

--0--

She was an oddity – a discolored, displaced piece from a different collection entirely. She had pale skin, white as snow, among a throng of chocolate browns. Her hair was raven silk among bramble weeds. Her eyes were stark lilac against midnight and mud.

Some might call her 'exotic', but she knew it was only because she was mismatched to the world she had been thrown into. It was only a degree of difference; as a child of half-Asian descend, she had been a neko mask among Greek proposa in Europe – similar, but not similar enough. Now, in central Africa, she was something else entirely.

Was she three, five? Didn't matter; she was barely old enough to begin forming memories when her sister – her caretaker, her adoptive parent – died.

'You're a part of the Kuichiki estate now. You'll be taken care of,' Rukia thought she remembered her saying before it happened. Or maybe it was a fabricated memory; didn't matter. What mattered was, her sister was cold and dead in the ground beneath an ornate-beautiful-hulking stone (as if the size of her towering monument might fill the gaping hole she left in the world behind). Rukia was left in the care of the dead-woman's husband, her adoptive brother.

Her earliest memories were of being taken care of by servants. But as the seemingly endless reserve of Kuichiki investments depreciated in market crash after merger failure after bad investments by the foundation – the familiar faces tapered away until there was only one. By age nine, her world was turned upside down again. From slum to mansion to impoverished, war stricken jungle.

"We're going to Congo," Byakuya spoke passively, carefully folding her sweaters into totes, as if she might ever need them again. "The only remaining holdings are in a Belgian mine. It's all we have left."

She wanted to say, 'We have each other…' but even a year shy of a ten into life, she knew they were silly words, and so she only nodded and offered a demure, "Yes, nii-san."

Byakuya tried his best to provide for her – enrolled her in a prestigious American-volunteer based school, had a house built that was more secure than the other rickety ones available when they arrived. Dare she call it a manor? Barely a bungalow by European standards, but it stood out like a castle among mud and straw huts, and maybe that was their downfall.

At age ten, Rukia came home to find Byakuya-nii-san dead of a gunshot wound to the head. His watch was gone, she noticed absent-mindedly – the house was in minor disarray, but the safe was untouched. It was a minor robbery – probably some hooligan looking for a buck, not even smart enough to have done his research before the hit. Byakuya Kuichiki had lived only months into his second decade.

It killed her to see him put in a box with ragged-wood edges. But it killed her more when the skipper of the ship told her that the meager crumbled bills fisted in her hand were only enough to buy passage home for one.

And so, she wrote on his cheap casket with a stick of charcoal – wrote her sisters name, and the cemetery where they might find her and her ornate-beautiful-hulking stone (now theirs to share, if only he could find his way there). She hoped perhaps back in Europe someone might recognize the name, and help him home.

(_Home_, she thought bitterly. _I suppose I have no such place anymore_. But she never had, and so in place of hurt, she instead felt the sharp sting of emptiness.)

She sat on the shore and watched the boat sail away, and when it finally hit her that the skipper could just as easily toss the load over the side midway and no one would ever know the difference, she wanted to cry but could only feel a biting cold inside. It was a welcome feeling, that cold, that ice, in this damned land of sun and heat.

She wanted to freeze.

--0--

When he was young (_younger_, some snide corner of his mind corrected… _young_er), his teachers had always doted on him. He was smart – a prodigy, a genius. He had exotic hair (_oh, such beautiful silver_, they cooed) and rare irises (_turquoise – have you ever seen such a clearly, lovely shade of turquoise?_) and a mean cunning for all things scholastic. (_You have such an old soul,_ junior high teacher admonished him. _Don't you want to go out and play with the other children, Hitsugaya?_)

He graduated high school at age nine and made the national news. By age fourteen, he was graduating college. By age sixteen he was a doctor (_of biology_, his father said with chagrin; _how trite – not even a medical doctor_, his mother concurred, because they wanted only the best for him even when the 'best' wasn't what he wanted himself).

At age seventeen, he felt old. 'I'm marrying Aizen-sensei,' Hinamori cheered, crushing him in a hug. Her arms tight around him weren't the only thing making it hard to breath. 'Oh you will be there won't you?' She was barely twenty. Aizen was a graduate student prof-ing one of her undergraduate classes.

He wanted to get away. Not boarding school away; not prestigious-out-of-country college away. _Away_ away. 'Research grants in Russia!' he read on a flier on the wall, and plucked it up on a whim.

His professors looked in askance when he applied; he was boy genius, world-renowned. He could go anywhere, do anything…

And instead, he ended up in Siberia, in some shit-hole podunk corner of nowhere. There was scarcely any life out here, and that made for a good façade of a research project: to study what it took to survive in this harsh environment, he said – the paper might as well have read 'for Hitsugaya to survive'.

He had little patience for others – perhaps least of all for the boisterous, too-cheerful, too-sultry, too-buxom environmental-scientist that shared the outpost with him, headed the research grant under which he was toiling. She was old enough to be his teacher, maybe even his mother – but, one particularly spiteful evening, he thought, 'Why not? Hinamori fucked _her_ professors,' and so he did.

He felt guiltier for the spiteful thought at Hinamori than for blatantly using the buxom blonde before him. He might have felt even worse upon that realization, if Matsumoto (god, he still called her by her last name…) hadn't rolled over and wrapped a comforting, almost maternal arm around him. 'I know everything isn't ok,' she murmured quietly. 'But sometimes… just _being_… is all you've got, and that's got to be enough.'

And for a minute, her warmth against his back, her blatant acceptance of him, her maternal affection – these were all things he had never had his entire life – _for that minute_, he thought, maybe it _would_ be enough.

Six months later, he received a backlog of mail and opened a yellowed envelope filled with frilly wedding pictures and a note asking 'Where were you?' When he turned back to the outpost, and saw Matsumoto leaning against the door waiting for him, hugging a mink stole close around her neck against the bitter Siberian wind, the sense of _homeyness_ washed over him like a wave, and it was cloying. Hadn't he come here to get away from all this? Hadn't he come here… to get away?

"It's too crowded here," he sighed late that night, as Matsumoto held him too gently, too kindly, too lovingly in her arms. He didn't deserve her – and she didn't deserve him, in a different kind of way. Their age difference – their personality difference – their _taboo_ – simply wasn't enough arms length anymore. He was cold, and he was suffocating.

He didn't say anything else – but he didn't need to, either. Matsumoto picked up on it in that cunning, too-perceptive way of hers. She knew him too well.

"Do you want me to go with you?" she asked, genuinely. If he said yes, he didn't doubt for a second that she would never look back. But instead he said no, and wanted to be disappointed when she only nodded sagely, as if she had expected his answer all along.

"Where are you going?" she asked.

"Somewhere I can burn," he snapped waspishly – and it wasn't even that he was angry, but just that it was his way. When she wasn't offended, he felt a sharp jab of something like regret, knowing this deep rooted understanding – this stable thing he had – would soon be gone. "My skin is too white, and it's so goddamn cold here…"

"With the white hair it does make you look albino," she tried to jibe. He tried to laugh, but could only find it in him to scoff. He wondered why his eyes burned.

It was a welcome feeling, the heat.

--0--

Her camos, her steel-toed boots – her utility belt, her multi-knife, her machete – her semi-automatic – they were all standard American issue. Left to guerrillas in the foreign-government's half-assed attempt at a coupe d'etat without getting their hands dirty. Instead, everyone's' hands got dirty, and nothing happened, and even wearing her pilfered grubby uniform, even hacking through the surrounding forest as if she owned it (didn't she?), she was porcelain doll among dogs.

She was only a few months older than twenty, and holding a gun to the head of a boy who looked to be near her age, maybe a little less. She thought of nii-san, and the irony was not lost upon her. She thought she was the sorest thumb to stick out in the Congo, but the moment she saw a white head ducking into her mine, she knew she had been mistaken.

She expected him to panic, but instead he only cocked his head – looked at her in a sidelong glance with exotic turquoise eyes. "You aren't from around here," he drawled.

"I'm not really from anywhere," she replied. It was perhaps the most honest thing she had ever said in her life.

She wondered if they had sold the little cemetery plot next to nee-chan and nii-san's. She knew no one would write in charcoal on her ragged-wood edged box, and so instead she kept the information pinned to the inside of her collar in a laminated envelope with a crumbled bill to pay the skipper. She hoped the vultures who picked over her body would fear haunting and follow the implied request of the dead – but then again, there was no way to know if nii-san had ever made it home either, so what did it matter?

"Not from anywhere…" he echoed, and he looked wistful. "What's it like?"

She stared at him blankly – eased her finger off the trigger. "Like _nothing_," she sighed. "I hate this godforsaken place."

"I keep running, but I just can't leave it all behind no matter where I go. What's holding you back?" he asked, a hint of bitterness in his tone – a hint of something like envy. The first sentence was like a breaking dam – like he had confided something important to her. Like he had opened up in some centripetal way, if only because he knew she wouldn't understand anyway.

"The only remaining holdings are in a Belgian mine. It's all we have left," she echoed woodenly. (_Not we – not anymore_, a part of her mind chided.) Diamonds – they may as well have been rocks, those pretty shiny little baubles. But she supposed someone somewhere must care about them, because they traded for a lot of bullets.

He turned his head fully now that the barrel of her gun wasn't pressing into him. When she looked at him, it occurred to her in a rush that they were perhaps as polar opposite as the ying and yang locks upon their heads. He kept running away, and she couldn't seem to move her feet.

"It's not much," he noted.

She barked a harsh laugh. "No, it's not." He wasn't here to steal her precious rocks – not here to ransack her precious mine – and realizing that, she felt suddenly drained. She pulled back and turned to walk away.

"Do you want me to go with you?" he called – quickly, impulsively almost, as if the words had surprised even him. She hesitated – cocked her head, regarded him carefully.

"It depends on where you're going," she offered finally.

He thought about it for a while – and then laughed, shaking his head. "Somewhere I can burn."

She looked back at him and smiled, tight lipped and ruefully ironic. "You've come to the right place for that." She continued on her way then, and though she didn't tell him to follow, she didn't tell him not to either, and so he did anyway.

And somewhere along the way, they found something between his overfill and her under.

--0--

**A/N:** Well – should I do any other post-modern work, or stick with canon-based? Themes, prompts, concrit welcome.

**Edit:** The ending (if you were curious) was just supposed to insinuate that their life experiences balanced one another. Hitsugaya was suffocating from too much - parents who loved him too much for a genius, a girlfriend who loved him too much like a brother, a matronly-figure who loved him too much like a lover - he ran and ran and ran and always ended up trapped with more... versus Rukia, who lost everything, wanted for everything, had nothing, but couldn't bring herself to go find more. So... I was trying to highlight the fact that her void, matched with his too-much, made a good match. They were able to balance each other. Rukia really had nothing to give him, but everything to take... and that was what they both needed in the end.


	9. makes fruit punch

**Title:** … makes fruit punch

**Rating:** T (for implied shoujo-ai)

**Characters:** All the redheads from Bleach.

**Pairings:** Rukia x Ichigo, Renji, Orihime, Matsumoto, Ashido, Kon, Yachiru (yeah, you read that right o.O)

**Setting: **AU

**Description:** The anthology of Rukia's loves. Fruit, Flavor, Redhead.

**A/N:** For ColourPearl, who specified "unusual couples." I wanted to make a piece with just the weirdest one I could think of, but I flaked out and decided to "work my way up" to it… *grins* Enjoy!

--0--

_Strawberry_

Her "first true love" came in the form of the strawberry. In kindergarten, Ichigo kicked her heel when she was walking. So, she turned around, secured him in a headlock, and made him eat sand.

Needless to say, things didn't work out.

No one could say they didn't try. Their juvenile "on-again-off-again" love story lasted until about fifth grade, when they both sat on the cusp of developing real hormones and began to realize that they were far better suited as squabbling siblings than something… grosser.

Byakuya seemed relieved by the breakup, but he scoffed at the comparison of Ichigo to a brother. "I should think not," he intoned, his aristocratic nose wrinkling a bit in distaste as he crisply shuffled a stack of papers into perfect order on his desk. "But this was a strategic decision just the same," he finished with approval, then patted her awkwardly on the head while she puzzled over the meaning of the word 'strategic.'

--0--

_Pineapple_

Rukia wasn't a slow learner per say. She was just… persistent. And so when things didn't work with one "brotherly figured", she moved on to greener (redder?) pastures, and her "second true love" came more in the form of a pineapple. Prickly and tough on the outside, but there was a sweet and down-to-earth center if you could get beyond it (if you could look past that wild frock of a ponytail that adorned his head to make him look the part, that is).

She would love him forever, but at their first junior high school dance, when he placed his hand on her hip for the first time, there was no denying that "squicky" feeling.

It was the first time Rukia cried for the loss of a wonderful idea. Byakuya could only stand awkwardly by, patting her on the shoulder and gingerly offering half-hearted embraces. In all honesty, he had rather liked this one.

--0--

_Peach_

She had gone with tart, she had gone with tough, and so it came as a pleasant suggestion to try something sweeter. The next was more like a peach – all saccharine sweet smiles, peach-skin soft caresses, and squeals of joy as jarring as that unexpected pit. Orihime was all unbridled enthusiasm. She was like the sun, and she warmed Rukia from the inside out.

The boys at school lamented the loss of their sherbet haired princess, and for a long time, Rukia celebrated her gain. Time passed slowly, lazily, marked by idle thumbs rubbing on wrists, heads on shoulders, stolen whispers, and taking turns sitting cross legged in each others laps beneath the school bleachers.

But… after a while, Rukia began to realize that there was something missing in the warm-fuzzy-sweet that was Orihime – and, when she began to feel the heated, jealous, resentful glares of Tatsuki boring into her back, and she began to muse that she wasn't quite as complimentary to the girl as she had thought. There was too much mush, and not enough… something.

Orihime cried when she broke up with her, but Rukia held her and whispered that there were better things in store for her. There were, of course, and when weeks later she spotted the other dark haired girl holding Orihime's hand and hovering over her protectively, Rukia smiled wryly and thought, 'They fit.'

She wondered what 'fit' her.

Byakuya did as well, as he wasn't seeing any rhyme or reason whatsoever by this point.

--0--

_Orange_

He was Ichigo's cousin, and couldn't have been more different from him. Maybe she was a little on the rebound – feeling prickles of envy when she saw the devotion of Tatsuki to her ex-girlfriend. In any case, when Kon transferred in junior year of high school and honed in on her like a missile, she couldn't help but to be charmed by his tart, crisp, refreshing, overzealous affection.

He was like a caricature. He spoke in stark certainties that one read in books and lacked in real life. He shouted his devotion to the heavens above, and (much to her hidden delight) was undeterred by her no-nonsense dismissals and scoffs.

They had fun for awhile, and Rukia enjoyed being awash in the certainty of his devotion. But time passed, and she began to realize that her scoffs were not just for show, and his over-the-top ways really were _too much_, and she began to feel suffocated and annoyed.

She broke his heart so she could breathe again.

Byakuya breathed again too – a great, heaving sigh of relief. The boy had been much, _much_ too loud.

--0--

_Nectarine_

There was something exotic about Matsumoto. Yes, she was sweet – but there was also a tart kind of edginess to her. She was plump and beautiful, wise and ditsy, biting but sweet and entirely unlike all those around her. She was a nectarine.

After the cloying, overzealous affection of Kon, there was something refreshing about the cool, smoky glances Matsumoto sent her way. Subtlety. It was an exotic, heady thing, after Kon who was anything but. She met Matsumoto at a book club, and her calm, quiet self-assurance – the total lack of neediness – was heady to Rukia. She wanted that.

She was almost positive that she had interpreted Matsumoto's speculative glances correctly, and so she decided to take a page from Kon's book (… you know, the straight-forward, utter lack of finesse book) and just marched right up and asked for her number.

Matsumoto arched a brow and chortled. "Aren't you a little young?" she teased – but she didn't outright say no, and so Rukia fought down her blush.

"I'm young and act old. You're o-old and act young," she demurred, blushing harder when she stuttered over her own faux paus.

Matsumoto's brow quirked a little more, but her lips were twitching into a smile. "Then what a fine pair we'd make," she contended, and ripped a page out of her planner and scrawled 7 quick digits on it. When Rukia moved to accept them, the older woman caught her fingers and held them for a moment, caressing. The moment was sexually charged, and Rukia shivered – she had never, ever, _ever_ felt something so decided not-innocent before.

"I'm not _old_, by the way," she purred. "But I'll let it slide – this time. Next time, though, you pay." She winked then, and it was all Rukia could do to keep her face from going up in flames.

They were not the collective "two-halves-of-a-whole" stereotype, and Rukia never harbored such an illusion. Matsumoto was more like a cat, giving bursts of affection at random, and maintaining a collected, caring kind of arms length the rest of the time. But she was experienced, strong, independent, and she was confident. She had so much about her that Rukia wanted to emulate, that sometimes, it was almost like Rukia was studying her rather than dating her.

It was ironic when she began to emulate Matsumoto's warm-cool cycle, and it became apparent very quickly that they had outgrown each other. Two weeks after graduation, as they sat beneath a tree and watched the birds chirp and spiral playfully in the midday sun, Matsumoto smiled and patted her on the head. "Well, kid, I think I'm done. You don't need me anymore."

Rukia stared at her blankly, and ignored the shoot of pain in her chest. "I thought that was the point. Not _needing_ someone – but _wanting_ them."

"Wanting is the more important element, certainly – but sometimes, there's something more fitting out there, just waiting. And I'm not it."

"Yes you are…" Rukia whispered, even though something inside her was able to calmly acknowledge the truth of her words.

"I _was_. I played the part you needed, when you needed it. But there's something more suited in store for you." She recognized the irony of having her own words to Orihime from once-upon-a-time fed back to her, and in the end, Rukia didn't know whether to be grateful or upset, and so she settled on some blubbering mix between the two.

"I think perhaps the temperament of redheads is innately unsuited to you, Rukia," Byakuya drawled the next day, peering in at her where she lay face down in bed, unable, unwilling, and ultimately uninterested in facing the world today.

She hadn't even recognized the trend until he did.

"She was more of a strawberry blonde," Rukia mumbled into her pillow halfheartedly.

"She was too old for you anyway," Byakuya snapped, and the subject was closed to discussion.

--0--

_Grapefruit_

If he thought Matsumoto was too old even with her random bursts of giddy, juvenile immaturity, then Byakuya most certainly was never going to approve of Ashido, with his blatant "mature bad boy" ease.

Rukia met him on the first day of college, when the dark haired, edgy-looking man blew a plume of smoke at her from where he was puffing a cigarette outside of the dorm. He eyed her speculatively, then drawled a lazy, "Well don't you just look good enough to eat."

Rukia froze, not sure whether to be baffled, horrified, or hysterically amused by the straight-forwardness of the upperclassman. Cocking her head, she used her newly-learned cheeky confidence to place a hand on her quirked hip and drawled a husky, "What, you want a piece of me?"

He shrugged, took another drag on the cigarette, and blew it a little more deliberately in her direction this time. "Or something," he smirked.

She smiled and breathed in the smoke, reveling in the fact that it had been in his mouth only moments before. He leered back, the same thought probably going through his head.

He was tart, acidic, and not entirely pleasant, but she sank her teeth in just the same. He was everything _naughty_ and _exotic _and _confident_ about Matsumoto and more. He was grapefruit. And maybe she loved him just because it was so clear all along that he was only going to be a side story.

"He has brown hair…" Rukia denied, but the argument was weak.

"There's a touch of mahogany," Byakuya intoned. And he was right, in the end, because things crashed and burned as they always did with the redheads.

--0--

… _Makes Fruit Punch_

She liked younger, she decided. She liked unbridled enthusiasm to balance the calm calculation, she liked edginess paired with familiarity, she liked independence with an odd shot of neediness. She liked sweet but cheeky. Bitey but affectionate. A perfect blend of all the others.

She liked the idea of something (someone) so totally conflicting, she knew they didn't exist. Or at least, she didn't think they did – but she knew she was wrong when she met Yachiru.

Rukia was at a fundraising ball – the kind of event the elders liked her to show face at, because her face was Kuichiki's face, and her appearance made them all look good. She was cradling that precious Kuichiki face in one hand, contemplating drowning herself in a soup bowl out of boredom, when she heard the stirrings of a commotion.

"Look, miss, it's just that the truffles were ordered with only a certain number per person in mind –"

"No, _you_ look _here_ Frog-chan. I'm sure there are enough people here who don't like chocolates that the spoils of this raiding expedition will not be missed."

Rukia peered between her fingers, and almost burst into laughter when she saw the waiter's face turning red. His throat billowed and fluttered hugely with each agitated breath, looking exactly like… a frog.

The pink-haired girl was short and stout, but somehow, when she frowned disapprovingly at the waiter, she seemed to tower over him. There was something cool and collected and independent about her –

When he reached to retrieve some of her 'pilfered truffles' from her, she bit him. The wild show of unhinged tartness pulled an unexpected guffaw from Rukia's chest.

"Touch my chocolate again, Frog-chan, and I can't be held accountable for what I do." And then, just to belie the statement, she grinned unrepentantly and popped another truffle into her mouth.

Rukia liked Yachiru, she decided, and made a point of getting up right then to go introduce herself.

The first time they kissed it was so achingly sweet and poignant that Rukia thought she might weep. She was terrified of the sudden serious weight pulling at their usual lighthearted banter, when –

"Ken-chan doesn't like it when I bring boys around," Yachiru announced suddenly, her thought process veering off in such typical Yachiru-fashion that Rukia felt whiplash just trying to keep up. For a moment, the Kuichiki's stomach dropped – she had misinterpreted. Of course Yachiru liked boys; of course the kiss had meant nothing –

Abruptly, Yachiru twined her fingers into the ebony silk at the base of Rukia's skull and yanked her in for an impromptu lick-lock that made a loud, embarrassing "pop!" when they parted. Rukia blushed; Yachiru arched a pink brow mischievously. "So I guess he won't see this one coming, ne, Ruki-chan? I can't _wait_ to see the look on his face!"

Rukia could. She imagined Yachiru's over-protective adoptive father, and twitched. "Yachiru – maybe we shouldn't tell him – you know, wait, see where this goes –"

Yachiru smiled gently, and rubbed her fingers gently at the base of Rukia's skull, where they still were twined. "I already know where it's going."

Rukia twitched – tried to avoid the tender look in the other girl's eye by looking away. "Ne, I don't want him to kill me –"

Yachiru burst into a loud laugh, and yanked Rukia into a brief, bone-crunching embrace. "Ruki-chan is silly. Kenny would have to get through me to touch you, and even he isn't _that_ stupid." And just as abruptly, the jovial air faded, and she tugged in Rukia's hair to force her to look back into her eyes. "I hope _no one_ is stupid enough to try to get through me. I don't want to have to bite any fingers… but I can't be held accountable when someone tries to take my sweets."

She gave a lopsided smile, Rukia gave a watery laugh, and bam starburst sweet supernova, she _knew_, and she _fit_.

When she brought Yachiru home to meet Byakuya, if Rukia had been looking closely, she might have noticed the way his face paled. She wasn't looking closely, though – she was too busy beaming happily, one arm wrapped around her complement as she waited expectantly for her brother's approval. "This is Yachiru. Isn't she wonderful, nii-san?"

"You're the one who stole the coy from the foundation's pond," he murmured disbelievingly, clearly not listening. He had always thought whatever family she came from must have been most unfortunate, for her to be the most suitable representative to send to business-meetings and the like.

Now, he was feeling like the unfortunate one.

"Coy are delicious!" Yachiru cheered, fist pumping into the air as if Byakuya had just commended her on scoring a touchdown. Rukia positively glowed.

"Oh! You've met! That's so wonderful!" She smiled, gestured between her brother and her girlfriend, flushed brighter, and spoke very formally. "Byakuya nee-san. This is Yachiru. She's… she's…." She hesitated – fumbled – but when she looked at the shorter, pink haired girl, she suddenly calmed, and for the first time in recollection, Byakuya thought, found herself.

"This is Yachiru, Byakuya nee-san," she repeated, without a hint of uncertainty. "I love her."

He knew that already – knew it from the moment he saw them together… though he couldn't help but wonder if pink counted as a shade of red.

--0--

A/N: Is this the only Yachiru x Rukia fic in existence? I think that deserves a reward of some sort…


	10. the bridesmaid

**Title:** the bridesmaid

**Rating:** K+

**Characters:** Rukia

**Pairings:** onsided Rukia x Ichigo, Ichigo x Orihime

**Setting: **Post Arrancar

**Description:** Even wearing her frilly pink bridesmaid dress, standing there as the picture of support for the bride, she couldn't swallow the bitter taste of broken dreams on her tongue.

**A/N:** Because canon is becoming a bitter pill to swallow.

--0--

The admiration was mirrored in their eyes, open and clear and painfully visible to even the blind. Open and clear and painfully visible even to _her_. Birds chirped, the sun was bright and cheerful overhead, and a faint, sweet smelling breeze stirred the garland over head. For a moment, the scene wavered like a mirage, and their openly adoring faces were those of Miyoko and Kaien-dono.

Even wearing her frilly pink bridesmaid dress, standing there as the picture of support for the bride, Rukia couldn't swallow the bitter taste of broken dreams on her tongue. She couldn't banish that painfully, embarrassingly selfish thought that maybe, just _maybe_, things might have been different this time – that maybe, maybe, maybe she might have _her_ happy ending.

Instead, she stood as Inoue's friend, as Inoue's show of female support at Inoue's fru fru frilly pink wedding, thinking wistfully of a different wedding, in a different place – thinking of midnight and deep violet complementing wild orange, instead of merely different flickering shades of ginger playing before prickling eyes.

"I do."

Her stomach clenched painfully, and for a terrible moment, she thought she might be sick. The tears glistening in her eyes she could explain away (_'Oh I'm just so happy!' she'd choke, and everyone would smile their bland smiles, nod their bland nods, and leave her alone to her swirling misery_). She hadn't even sampled Inou's creative h'ourderves or hit the open bar yet to explain away the bile churning in her gut, and so, she clamped her mouth shut, grit her teeth, and bore it.

"You may kiss the bride."

She couldn't clap and hoot and holler and cheer with the rest – suddenly, couldn't even twist her lips into a picture of happiness for her friends (friend_, yes, that's all he was, that's all he would ever be, now…_). The plastered smile, summoned with such false alacrity, faltered. Her cheeks were wet, but she knew that no one would be watching her anyway. She was but a spot of darkness, eclipsed and outshone by the burning sun of love beyond her.

She was close enough to hear Inoue's soft whisper of, "I knew we were meant to be," even over the continuing wild cheers of the crowd. And when Ichigo smiled – when that forever-present crinkle between his brows smoothed and disappeared – she knew once and for all that she had been left behind.

She had loved him for that petulant frown. She had adored that crinkle, and figured that meant something. She would never have thought to take it away; would never have even wanted to try.

But Inoue Orihime made him smile, and even as his scowl disappeared, so too did her place in his life.

--0--

**A/N:** Yeah, it's been awhile. Blame the authors (not this one – the rich ones.) Bleach and Naruto are both brutally murdering my OTPs. Share my pain!

And while we're drowning our sorrows… requests and suggestions, anyone?


End file.
